11-12-2025 Workshop Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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Staff Report To: Mayor Fischer and Members of the City Council From: Ben Harrington, AICP, Community Development Director Date: November 12, 2025 Re: Massage and Complementary and Alternative Health Care Practices (CAHC) Action To Be Considered: Provide direction to staff on how the city should regulate complementary and alternative health care (CAHC) practices involving physical touch, including whether such services should be treated the same as massage or addressed separately under the regulatory/licensing code. Background: Under Minnesota Statutes §146A, complementary and alternative health care (CAHC) includes a broad range of healing or therapeutic practices that fall outside conventional medical care, such as massage therapy, reiki, reflexology, energy work, and therapeutic touch. The State establishes limited conduct and disclosure standards for these practitioners but does not license them. Local governments may adopt their own business licensing and performance requirements to ensure consumer protection and regulatory consistency. Cities, including Little Canada, do typically license and regulate massage establishments specifically to ensure professional conduct, maintain legitimate business operations, and prevent misuse of such spaces for adult-oriented purposes. City staff have recently received inquiries from practitioners seeking to offer CAHC services involving physical touch that are not traditional massage therapy. Little Canada’s licensing provisions, found in Chapters 2202 and 2203, were written to regulate traditional massage therapy businesses and narrowly define massage activity, resulting in ambiguity surrounding other CAHC practices involving physical touch. These chapters include performance standards related to hours of operation and practitioner qualifications, as well as a cap of three (3) massage establishments citywide. To qualify for licensure, massage practitioners must complete at least 600 hours of coursework in massage theory, anatomy, and hygiene. After consultation with the City Clerk, staff are not recommending an increase to the number of allowed massage licenses at this time, as there is concern about oversaturation of such businesses within the city. Staff believe it is prudent to use this opportunity to clarify how the city regulates touch-based CAHC practices that are not traditional massage therapy. To that end, staff have identified several options for the Council’s consideration.